Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

A school that would try to teach that the difference between men and women is fundamental and marriage between men and women has a particular value would certainly suffer under the rule of the Minister of State, Deputy Ó Ríordáin, because it appears it would be in the power of the State to determine what children must learn. This is not education, it is propaganda, and it is the antithesis of the type of pluralism that should be at the heart of what education is about.

Education in the origin of the word means to draw out of children, so respect for the child is and ought to be the most fundamental thing. The ideological misuse of equality to insist on a certain menu of ideas for children is far from respecting children. It should not be necessary for me to remind the Minister of State that the reason the churches have been so involved in the provision of education is because, as Senator Conway generously acknowledged, they were ready and willing to provide education when nobody else was and when the State was not in a position to do so. To go from there to saying that now the State is in a position to provide all of the infrastructure and finance that religious institutions should be banished from education is simple intolerance.

I agree with anybody who says it is farcical that 90% of schools should be under the patronage of one organisation. I would like to see an Ireland with generous resources for education. Starting from the principle that the parents, and not the Minister with responsibility for education, is the primary educator of children there should be generous resourcing for education according to the values of families and what they seek for their children. Senator Bacik acknowledged earlier in the debate, and I listened to her say it, that many people who may not be practising believers still seek to perpetuate the system as it is. She suggested this is because they do not want to put at risk their opportunities to have their children educated, but this is ungenerous. I do not mean this in a morally critical sense but it does not do sufficient justice to the range of motivations. Many people who may be agnostic or atheist recognise there is a value system, particularly in the western world according to the Judeo-Christian system, which they want their children to have, whether it is men respecting women, care for the poor or care for the environment-----